On the road to the Super Bowl
Buffalo facing former coach in wild-card game vs. Jaguars
The wild-card round of the NFL playoffs begins this weekend. On Saturday, Tennessee plays at Kansas City (4:35 p.m. ET, ESPN), and Atlanta plays at the Los Angeles Rams (8:15 p.m. ET NBC). On Sunday, Buffalo plays at Jacksonville (1:05 p.m. ET, CBS) and Carolina plays at New Orleans (4:40 p.m. ET, Fox).
After laboring in the NFL trenches for 12 years and until now habitually watching the NFL playoffs at home on television, Kyle Williams insists that, no, this is not about Doug Marrone.
Sure, the longest-tenured Buffalo Bills player was taken aback three years ago when Marrone bolted as Buffalo’s coach — literally a take-the-money-and-run scenario — after guiding the franchise to its first winning season in a decade.
But just because Marrone will be on the other sideline coaching the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC wild-card playoff on Sunday doesn’t provide the burly defensive tackle with any extra fuel.
“Not for me,” Williams told USA TODAY this week. “So much is being made of it. He’s got his team that he’s leading. I’ve got my team. The only motivation that we need right now is that we’ve got a chance to advance in the playoffs. If that’s not enough motivation, I don’t know what else you’d need.” Yeah, but this is such a juicy subplot. “It’s kind of the way of the world,” Williams countered, refusing the bait. “Shoot, we’ve got quite the challenge in playing a really good football team.”
The Bills — seemingly headed for the
scrapheap in mid-November when rookie coach Sean McDermott benched quarterback Tyrod Taylor for the fivepick, one-half disaster that was rookie Nathan Peterman — are in the playoffs for the first time since 1999. They finally ended the NFL’s longest playoff drought, getting in with a miracle as Cincinnati stung Baltimore with a long, last-minute touchdown.
Given all of that, emotions have been overflowing. More than 11,000 Bills fans donated nearly $300,000 to the foundation established by Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, who threw that winning TD to Tyler Boyd. Hundreds showed up at the airport on Sunday night to greet the Bills (9-7) upon their return from Miami, where they defeated the Dolphins — and watched the final stages of the Bengals-Ravens game on TV in a locker room that ultimately exploded with joy.
Williams, sensing the chance for something special, even had his two oldest sons, Harrison Reed and Gray, in the locker room for a unique father-son moment. “That’s something that, hopefully, they’ll never forget,” Williams said. “But I really feel good for the Bills fans and the people in the organization who have been here for so long and stuck it out. They don’t have to hear about (the drought) anymore.”
For all of that magic, beating Marrone would be like icing on the cake.
When he quit after guiding the team to a 9-7 finish, he never told his players. To this day, Marrone hasn’t explained his decision publicly, although there’s much speculation that he was at odds with since-departed general manager Doug Whaley. He might have also been uncertain of where the franchise was headed under the direction of the new owners, Terry and Kim Pegula.
Then there was the financial windfall.
Marrone’s contract included a rather sweet provision that allow him to optout and collect a $4 million buyout if he exercised the clause within a three-day window at the end of the season. He quickly wound up in Jacksonville, first as O-line coach, then interim coach and then this season as the head coach who led the Jaguars (10-6) to the franchise’s first division title since 1999.
Asked this week about his controversial departure, Marrone declared, “What has passed, has passed. My goal and my function … this stuff — and I am going to shoot everyone straight — happened so long ago. There has obviously been a lot of stuff out there. That stuff is done. It is over. I can’t put it any simpler than that. I am not going to take away from my primary responsibility to look back on a situation that occurred three years ago. If I do that, then I shouldn’t be the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.”
This isn’t the first time such subjects provided a backdrop to a game. Sunday will mark the third time Marrone has faced the Bills since his departure. This time it garners more attention with the playoff stage.
“I’ve heard Doug Marrone stories, heard them all,” said Bills guard Richie Incognito, via the Rochester Democrat And Chronicle. Incognito came after Marrone’s two-year tenure. “It’s a little extra motivation for some of these guys; he quit on them, and that rubbed some guys the wrong way. I hope guys use that the right way as motivation to go down and get this win. He made a decision for his career and personal life and he has to live with it.”
Only seven players remain from Marrone’s last Buffalo team, and two of them are on injured reserve. So there’s only so much revenge blood to be found. Williams, a team captain, actually cuts Marrone some practical slack.
“It was disappointing when he left,” Williams said. “We had just finished a successful season. I liked Doug. But if you’re around long enough, you’re going to see players, coaches and coordinators come and go. It’s kind of the nature of the beast, a mixed bag. And it’s all kind of a business.”
A business where loyalty, when mixed with dollars, only goes so far.